What To Do (and What NOT To Do!) When One of Your Employees Starts Crying (part 3)

Here are parts one and two of this series.

When one of your employees starts crying in your office, bear in mind that it shouldn’t upset you or throw you off track. If you have any preconceptions or prejudices that cause you to emotionally overreact to crying, get over them or learn to see past them. Crying is simply an involuntary biological reaction. There’s no reason for you to back down and become placating, nor is there any reason for you to become angry or exasperated.

It will only make the situation worse if you allow yourself to be flustered in any way. Be patient, be understanding, and keep your composure.

Knowing how to handle this situation is part of your job as a manager. It’s a professional skill you need to acquire just like you need to learn how to analyze performance data and prepare a budget. It’s also an opportunity to be a good person, to treat another human being with compassion and respect.

The main thing is to maintain the baseline demeanor you had before the crying started. For example:

• If you were disciplining the employee, maintain the same basic sense of firmness and seriousness. (This assumes you weren’t being cruel. There’s never a place for cruelty in management. If you made the employee cry by being cruel, shame on you. Apologize for doing it and learn to deliver discipline appropriately.)
• If you were discussing a workplace conflict in which the employee was involved, remain interested but neutral.
• If the employee had come to you with a personal issue, remain compassionate and professional.

Your goal is to help the employee move past the tears. You want to refocus the meeting on the underlying issue and  pick up where you left off with the same demeanor you had before the crying started.

The employee will almost always feel uncomfortable about crying. This can range from feeling mildly embarrassed to feeling absolutely mortified and humiliated. They’ll often apologize over and over again, or express how horrified they are to find themselves crying in front of the boss.

Why does the employee feel bad about crying? There are several reasons.

• In our culture, we’re generally uncomfortable with crying in front of anyone except our closest friends and relations.
• We’re especially uncomfortable about crying in the workplace because it’s seen as “unprofessional.”
• If you can’t stop yourself from crying, you’re not in control of your own actions, and that is inherently disturbing.
• For employees who want to get promoted, they’re afraid you’ll see them as being unqualified for leadership positions.

The crying creates a bad dynamic because:

1. The employee was already feeling bad about whatever caused her to start crying in the first place, and
2. Now she also feels bad about crying in front of her boss.

Your job at this point is to remove the second issue, to help her stop feeling bad about crying. There are two reasons for doing this.

• You’re a good boss and you care about your employees. You should always seize opportunities to help your employees feel less sad and more happy. No act of compassion is ever wasted, and every moment of kindness makes our world a better place.
• You need to get the meeting back on track. The “I-feel-bad-about-crying” issue is an unnecessary and unproductive distraction. The sooner you can make the crying a non-issue, the sooner both of you can refocus on the real issue you were discussing in the first place.

The way you do this is pretty simple: just keep giving the employee reassurance until she stops apologizing for crying. At the same time, through your tone of voice, body language, and facial expression, demonstrate that you’re not getting angry, flustered, impatient, etc. In other words, serve as a role model for the message, “It’s okay that you’re crying, nothing’s changed, we can be comfortable with this situation.”

Be patient. Every time the employee apologizes or expresses a sense of shame, give another message of assurance. Here are some examples of useful messages:

• “It’s fine”
• “Please don’t worry about it”
• “Take your time”
• “It’s perfectly natural, we’re talking about a sensitive matter”

Don’t make the employee feel pressured or rushed because that will just make it harder for her to get her emotions under control.

In the next and final post in this series, we'll talk about three levels of crying and how to handle each one.

Here is part four of this series.

Comments

[Sali]

As a former director of a social service agency I want to commend you on this series about crying in the workplace.

To be patient and understanding while remaining firm and not being distracted away from the basic purpose of an encounter is an excellent way to get back on track and foster mutual respect in the process.

[Reagan]

Thanks Sali. I like what you said about being both understanding and firm. As with so many other aspects of being a manager, it's not a matter of choosing between being a "softie" or a "toughie" but rather finding that more effective combination of compassion and strength of purpose.